Bargaining

Turkey Demands $32 Billion U.S. Aid Package if It Is to Take Part in a War on Iraq

By DEXTER FILKINS with ERIC SCHMITT

Published: February 19, 2003

ISTANBUL, Feb. 18 — Turkish and American officials continued their diplomatic brinkmanship today, as the Turks said they were waiting for the Bush administration to answer their demand for an economic aid package worth as much as $32 billion to ensure their participation in a war with Iraq.

The American ambassador to Turkey, Robert Pearson, was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry after 10 p.m. on Monday and handed the proposal, which he forwarded to Washington, American officials said.

The Turkish request is about $6 billion higher than what American officials said over the weekend was their final offer. Of the $26 billion Washington has offered, $20 billion is in loan guarantees and $6 billion in direct grants. Although a Western diplomat said the Turks were seeking about $10 billion in direct aid, the White House is adamant that $6 billion is the limit for direct aid.

It remains to be seen whether negotiations will begin anew or whether the administration's plan to use Turkey as a launching pad for an invasion of northern Iraq will fall through. That prospect seemed to put an unusual strain on the relationship between the longtime allies, who have been speaking of each other in increasingly harsh tones.

As of this evening, Turkish officials said they had received no answer from the Americans. As the day began in Washington, Ari Fleischer, President Bush's spokesman, called on the Turkish leaders to approve the deal that the Americans had offered.

"We continue to work with Turkey as a friend, but it is decision time," Mr. Fleischer said.

As Mr. Fleischer spoke, senior administration officials met at the White House to discuss the Turkish proposal, still hoping, at least in public, that Turkey would approve the smaller economic package.

That seemed increasingly unlikely here, as the day passed without a vote by Parliament on the deployment of American combat troops. Turkish officials had scheduled one, but canceled it on Monday, saying they would go forward only after they reached an agreement on an economic aid package.

There is a growing sense on both sides that time is running short. American military planners have drawn up two sets of war plans: one that includes Turkey as a staging area and one that does not.

Two senior American military officials said today that without Turkish consent by the end of the week, the Pentagon would be forced to shift to a less desirable backup plan.

"Two or three more days is about all that's left," said one of the senior officials.

With ships carrying equipment for more than 15,000 soldiers of the Fourth Infantry Division now approaching Turkish ports, the military can wait only so long before planners need to divert the equipment to the Persian Gulf in time to unload it and have it ready for troops there by early March.

Turkish leaders publicly warned that they might ultimately refuse to take part in an American operation against Iraq. In a speech that seemed intended for an American audience, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the majority Justice and Development Party, said Parliament's recent vote authorizing American engineers to upgrade Turkish military bases did not mean that the Turks would agree to open their bases to thousands of American troops.

"Our American friends should not interpret this decision to mean that Turkey has embarked on an irreversible road," Mr. Erdogan said. "It is not possible for us to accept anything which we don't approve of, which we don't believe as necessary or which we can't explain to our people."

Pentagon officials, seeking to put the best face on a bad situation, said that starting a northern offensive from Turkey, while desirable, was not essential to victory.

But officials clearly want to move ahead, one way or another. Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, told a Turkish reporter last week that ships ferrying American soldiers were in the Mediterranean Sea and could not wait indefinitely for an agreement.

"We can no longer keep our troops waiting on ships, wandering around the eastern Mediterranean," Mr. Wolfowitz said in the interview, printed in Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper. Without a decision soon, he said, "it is highly likely that we would order our ships in the eastern Mediterranean to shift their direction to the gulf."

The deadlock seemed to grow out of the belief, held by each country, that it holds the upper hand in the negotiations. Turkish leaders believe that the Americans, whatever they say privately, desperately need the country's participation in a war against Iraq.

It is not just that a northern front would make an invasion easier, it is that Turkey is a Muslim country that is democratic and secular — precisely the kind of government the Bush administration hopes an invasion of Iraq might help bring about in other corners of the Middle East.

At the same time, the Turkish public overwhelmingly opposes a war. For many here, the potential war with Iraq seems to promise a repeat of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, when Turkey was swamped with half a million refugees and its trade with Iraq plummeted.

For their part, the Americans believe that Turkey cannot afford to turn them down, and that Turkey's leaders will ultimately understand that.